This invention relates to hotel guest room vending networks and particularly to improvements in the interaction between the vending units and controllers of such networks to improve the services and features offered.
Hotel guest room vending arrangements began as a plurality of guest room vending units containing vendable articles which the hotel room guest could use at will. Periodically hotel personnel would inventory the guest room vending units to determine which articles had been used by the guests and report the use to the hotel front desk. The front desk then computed the charges for the used articles and added them to the guest bill of the user. When a guest checked out, a special inventory was required to provide accurate usage information for the guest's final bill. To improve guest room vending, automated systems have been produced which record the purchase events in the guest rooms and convey this information directly to a centralized computer which computes the customer's bill.
Automated reports to the centralized computer reduce the human participation required for inventories and improve the reliability of the actual inventory taken. The real convenience of operation for both the hotel staff and hotel guests provided by these prior automated systems is still limited, however. In one known system, the vending units are given certain control over vending unit operations by the incorporation of a microprocessor therein, but inventories are only periodically sent to the central controller resulting in a real time lag between actual and reported inventory. Such a time lag potentially causes under-billing by the hotel system for items used after the last inventory was accumulated or significant delays at checkout time so that a last minute inventory can be taken. Last minute delays can create significant problems at busy times when many guests are wanting to checkout. With another known system, the central computer is notified of each purchase at a vending unit as that purchase occurs so that the central control always knows of current purchases. However, with this arrangement, the system is subject to erroneous messages on the communication path between the central computer and the vending units.
Prior systems share other limitations in service. For example, such systems still rely on printed price lists in each guest room to notify the guests of the prices of articles in the vending units. Such price lists are frequently lost, resulting in guest confusion, and require expensive reprinting and delivery when prices in the vending units change. A need exists for an improved arrangement of notifying hotel guests of prices of articles to be vended.
Arrangements for permitting service access to the vending units for their restocking and maintenance are also important to the convenience of hotel room vending systems. Prior automated vending systems use physical locks and keys to permit internal access to the vending units by only service personnel. When keys are lost or stolen, expensive lock changes and key replacements are required. Clearly a need exists for a hotel vending network which improves arrangements for providing service personnel access to vending units.
Prior arrangements, operating under a limited communication protocol, transmitted information on the communication path and assumed that the transmitted information was properly received and responded to. Dependence on such assumptions resulted in systems in which spurious signals could be induced on the communication paths of the system and interpreted as real signals, such as a notice that an article had been vended. A need exists for a vending arrangement which avoids such responses to erroneous messages.
The prior automated guest room vending arrangements lack sufficient control arrangements at the vending units and a sufficient sophisticated communications protocol between the vending units and the centralized controller to meet the needs as set forth above.